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Darley Dene Primary School

Teaching & Learning Weekly Summary

Below you will find our weekly teaching and learning summary to find out how we develop and enrich your child's teaching and learning whilst they are with us.

If you would like to keep up with what your child is doing in class, please follow our EYFS instagram account where we share lots of photos of our day to day learning @darley_dene_eyfs.

 
Week ending What we have been learning about
15/11/24 What a brilliant week we've had celebrating Diwali. We had a wonderful Diwali workshop where the children danced with scarfs and read some Hindi stories to deepen their knowledge of Diwali. In maths, we looked at circles and triangles and enjoyed making our own Rangoli patterns from these shapes. It was so lovely to see so many of our families come and visit the children for 'Stay and Play' where they shared their learning this week on Little Glow. We also spoke about how we can respect each other in the playground as it was anti-bullying week and thought of ways we could use kind hands and kind words to our friends. Have a phenomenal weekend!
08/11/24 What a brilliant first week back Reception! We have started our new topic of 'Celebrations and Festivities' and we started exploring bonfire night. The children enjoyed making firework pictures using their fine motor skills to stamp colours and pinch glitter to give it a shine. In our new power of reading text 'Little Glow' we looked at the different celebrations and focused on what happened at a birthday. The children then wrote their own party shopping list of what they would like at their own birthday party. The children enjoyed exploring the new role-play area of a Cafe. The children took orders, served food and ran their busy café, including a special menu item of toast and jam! We will see you all next week.
25/10/24 Reception had a brilliant week exploring the theme of Halloween. The spiderweb's fine motor skills activity was a hit in reception as the children worked hard to pinch the spiders and eyeballs from the tough tray web. The children enjoyed exploring the inside of a pumpkin as they practised scooping out the insides and counting the seeds. We had a wonderful time creating potions in writing and included some creative items in our couldron such as slime, bones, spider legs and eyeballs. We are so amazed at the children's subsidising skills as they learnt how to recognise 4 and 5 this week in different ways. Reception also enjoyed making Halloween cookies and icing them to develop their fine motor skills and spark creativity. Have a fantastic half-term and we will see you soon!
18/10/24 This week we have been celebrating Black History Month! We looked back at our power of reading the text "Hair Love" and discussed what products people use in their hair and why doing our hair makes us feel special. We also explored different afro hairstyles and used braids and pom poms to create these hairstyles in the artistic style of Tyler Clark. The children have been learning about circles and triangles and went on a shape hunt to try and identify these two shapes in our school. They also made their own ankara prints using triangles and circles in a pattern. The children loved creating sunset silhouettes of animals on a safari. Have a great weekend!
11/10/24 This week we have been celebrating Harvester and all things 'kindness'. In writing, we have been exploring our power of reading text 'We All Belong' and have been discussing what makes us different. We have linked the theme of inclusivity from the book with our school values and have identified how we belong in our classroom and school community. The children did a fantastic job at subsitising 1, 2 and 3 this week. We have started partitioning the numbers too. To deepen our learning, we also made the number block 1, 2 and 3! The children loved going on a 'B' hunt around the classroom to practise their letter formation of B. Have a wonderful weekend!
04/10/24 Reception have had a super week reading our new book 'Hair Love'. They wrote some wonderful sentences about their hair and what it looks like. We had a fun time learning about other hairstyles and having a discussion about what we love about our own hair. In maths, we looked at creating our own pattern with shapes, colour and sounds too. The children also explored what heavy and light means in maths, and we weighed objects using the scales. Reception had a wonderful time creating faces using natural resources such as pine cones, conkers and sticks. We wish you a wonderful weekend!
27/09/24 This we have been reading our new power of reading text 'We all belong'. We had a discussion about what makes us the same and what makes us different. We learnt that the children in our class speak many different languages at home and eat different types of food too. In maths, we have been making rules in sorting and matching and looking at the 'odd one out' of a set. The children used their maths eyes to make observations of different buttons and sorted them in different ways. For example by colour, shape, number of holes and size. It has been so wonderful to see the children making their own houses using the lollipop sticks in the art area. They also used their matching skills to create faces, matching the correct eyes, ears, nose and mouths. We can't wait to see you all next week. Have a great weekend!
20/09/24 The children have had a wonderful time learning new sounds 'i', 'n', 'm' and 'd'. Keep practising your segmenting and blending skills with words that start with these at home! The children were introduced to our power of reading text, The Colour Monster. They met lots of different monsters, such as the confused, happy, sad and angry monster. We discussed what makes us feel these different emotions and the children had a chance to write down what makes them feel happy in writing lessons. In maths, we have been continuing to look at matching and sorting and used our maths eyes to sort objects in only two groups, for example buttons with 2 holes and buttons that don't have 2 holes. It was wonderful to see the children use the small world area to create their own homes and describe where they live. We are looking forward for a super week next week!
13/09/24 Reception class has had a terrific week learning about our classroom and playground environment as they begin to settle into day to day routines. We have been practising greetings throughout the day and how to introduce ourselves to our peers by saying our names. The children have loved 'dough disco' on the carpet as they begin to strengthen their fine motor skills and sing rhymes and songs aloud. In maths, we have been making patterns with bears, beads and blocks. Our phonics have started really well, and we have learnt 4 new sounds, 'S, A, T and P' and learnt keywords that begin with our sounds. The hospital dress up area has been so popular and it has been a joy seeing children act in roles as doctors, vets and nurses while treating their patients. Next week we will start our power of reading text 'The colour monster' and we have already been introduced to some of the characters in the book. Have a wonderful weekend and we will all see you next week!
06/09/24 It has been so wonderful having our Reception children at school this week, where they have been meeting new friends and learning new routines. Over the last few days, we have been learning about our classroom environment and different resources we can use in our play. We are so proud of all the children and look forward to seeing you on Monday.
Darley Dene Primary School